Iraq, Parts 1-3
A new film looks at a fragmented country.
By Leigh Ferrara
Tuesday November 14, 2006
James Longley’s documentary “Iraq in Fragments,” which opened across the United States on Friday, is a torturous portrayal of a nation splintering into three ethnic factions. In three parts, Longley shows Iraq, which comprises Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish populations, as a nation rife with internal conflict and plagued by outside oppression. Longley reminds us that Iraqi sectarianism is not new, but that British occupation enclosed these three regions within the same border a century ago.
“Iraq in Fragments,” filmed between April 2003 and February 2005, is prescient; the Baker Commission claimed last month that splitting Iraq into three sections along ethnic boundaries is the only alternative to either “cut and run” or the Bush administration’s long-touted (and recently shelved) tagline of “stay the course.” But just as the British takeover of Baghdad in 1917 was about establishing inroads to India, the commission’s recommendations so far appear to be about oil and military stability in the Middle East, not necessarily the autonomy of the fragmented Iraqi people.
Longley’s film does not advocate for the division of Iraq into three sections; it depicts sectarianism as a foregone conclusion—visions of an empowered Shiite religious uprising, a long-awaited “Kurdistan,” and Sunnis longing for Saddam, the oppressor they called their own. And although this could be a glimpse into the future, it feels like an oversimplification of the present. While some Kurds and Shiites are separatists, many Iraqis are not. According to one poll, an overwhelming majority of Iraqis, 78 percent, oppose the dissolution of Iraq and think that the formation of a national government representative of the main ethnic and religious groups is imperative to the stability of the country.
Longley’s film is composed in three parts documenting the lives of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds separately, which further emphasizes the ethnic fracturing of Iraq. Part one, “Mohammed of Baghdad,” portrays the life of Mohammed Haithem, an 11-year-old Sunni apprentice in the industrial Omar Sheik neighborhood of Baghdad whose relationship with his boss reveals broader truths about life under Saddam. Both romanticize their former oppressor. The divisions among Sunnis and Shiites are evident as Mohammed’s boss criticizes the Dawa Party, formerly a militant Shiite Islamic group and now an Iraqi political party, asking where they were 35 years ago when the Baathist Regime took control. His view is contrasted with that of one of his coworkers, who says that, in the face of change, we must “forget the spirit of new divisions and denominations,” but this voice seems marginalized by popular sectarian sentiment.
Part two, “Sadr’s South,” delves into the growing religious uprising of the long-oppressed majority Shiite group under the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, son of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, the respected Shiite leader who was assassinated by Saddam in 1999 for speaking out against the regime. Longley captures the Shiite opposition to both American occupation and the encroachment of Sunnis into the new political sphere. There are shots of political strategy meetings where Shiite leaders discuss elections and agree Sunnis should not be recognized, as well as scenes of Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia, the Mehdi Army, cleansing “American” depravity in the form of alcohol sellers in the Nasiriyah market. Longley also shows that some Shiites themselves fear a Shiite uprising: One man on the street speaks of the Mehdi Army as the new Saddam.
The third and final part of Longley’s film, “Kurdish Spring,” looks at a people starving for independence and sitting atop oil-rich land. Longley captures Kurdish poll workers telling Kurdish men and women who to vote for and touches on the fact that many in Iraq feel the Kurds are blasphemers who brought America to Iraq. The January 2005 Iraqi national elections secured more than a quarter of the seats in the national assembly for the Kurds, and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani would later that year be named president of Iraq. Talabani’s son, Qubad, is President of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a political party that advocates self-determination for Kurds in Iraq.
Longley’s portrayal of a fragmented Iraq does not pretend to have the answers to the many questions plaguing the country. The documentary is not about despair, although there is plenty, and it is not about the hope for the future, although there is some of that, as well. But from 300 hours of footage, Longley gives his audience a raw depiction of a country drawn into existence by a colonizing power, subjected to oppression by a ruthless regime, and now struggling through the throes of occupation and civil war. Longley’s film cannot predict the future, but it does remind us of Iraq’s complex past, and that it is always hubristic to ignore history.
Leigh Ferrara is a senior editorial fellow at Mother Jones Magazine. Prior to her time at MoJo, she was an intern at San Francisco Magazine. She began her stint in journalism publishing the bilingual newspaper, EntreMundos in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Leigh graduated from Colgate University in 2002 with a degree in Economics.
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Sounds like an important film to see for many Americans. We in the United States often overlook the ambiguity of nations and borders in regard to the peoples enclosed within them; yet, the modern-day effects of Iraq’s history of rupture and colonization — including a conflicting heterogeneous national population — are a crucial component to an analysis of the situation in Iraq. Thanks for the review, Ms. Ferrara!
— Sierra Lomuto - Nov 14, 09:52 PM - #I met James Longley in Baghdad in 2002. He strikes me as a gifted, fearless, thoughtful film maker. I’m most eager to see his “Iraq in Fragments”.
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